How to Create a Strategic Social Media Marketing Plan in 9 Easy Steps 

Creating your own social media marketing strategy doesn't have to be painful. Create an efficient arrangement for your business in nine straightforward steps.

A social media marketing strategy is a summary of everything you plan to do on social media and hope to accomplish. It guides your actions and tells you whether or not you're succeeding or failing.

The additional specific your arrangement is, the more practical it'll be. Keep it short. Don't build it therefore high and wide that it's undoable or not possible to live.

In this post, we'll walk you through a nine-step plan to create your own winning social media strategy.

 

strategic social media marketing plan

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is the process of using social media channels to sell or promote a brand, product, or service.

Social media marketing helps businesses:

• Increase brand awareness.
• Build engaged communities
• Sell products and services.
• Measure brand sentiment.
• Provide social customer service.
• Advertise products and services to the target audiences.
• Track performance and adjust broader marketing strategies accordingly.

 

What is a Social Media Marketing Strategy?

A social media strategy is a document that outlines your social media goals, the strategies you'll use to achieve them, and the metrics you'll track to measure your progress.

Your social media marketing strategy should list all your current and planned social media accounts, as well as specific goals for each platform you're active on. These goals should align with your company's broader digital marketing strategy.

Finally, a good social media plan defines roles and responsibilities within your team and outlines your reporting cadence.

Read on for detailed steps to create a social media strategy.

 

Step 1. Choose Social Media Promoting Goals that Align with Business Goals

Set S.M.A.R.T goals

The first step to creating a winning social media strategy is to define your goals and objectives. Without goals, you have got no thanks for living success and come on investment (ROI).

Each of your goals should be:

• specific
• Measurable
• Accessible
• Important
• Limited in time

This S.M.A.R.T. framework of goals will guide your actions and ensure that they lead to real business results.

Here is an example of S.M.A.R.T. the aim:

 

Tracking Meaningful Metrics

Vanity metrics like follower count and likes are easy to track, but proving their true value is difficult. Instead, focus on things like engagement, clicks, and conversion rates.

You might want to track different goals for different social networks, or different usage for each network.

For example, if you use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your website, you'll measure clicks. If Instagram is for whole awareness, you'll track the amount of Instagram Story views. And if you advertise on Facebook, cost per click (CPC) is a common metric of success.

Social media goals ought to align together with your overall promoting goals. This demonstrates the value of your work and secures the acceptance of your boss.

Begin developing a successful social media marketing plan by writing down at least three social media goals.

 

Step 2. Learn all They can About Your Audience

Create an audience persona

Knowing what World Health Organization your audience is and what they require to examine on social media. This way, you'll produce content that they'll like, comment on, and share. This is additionally necessary if you wish to convert social media followers into customers for your business.

When it comes to your target customers, you need to know things like:

• The year
• location
• Average income
• General job title or industry
• Interests
• Etc

Get to know your fans, followers, and customers as real people with real wants and needs, and you'll know how to target and engage them on social media.

 

Collect Data

Don't speculate. Do you suppose Facebook may be a higher network to achieve baby boomers than millennials? Well, statistics show that Facebook's largest age demographic is actually 30-49.

Social media analytics can even offer a great deal of valuable info regarding the World Health Organization your followers are, wherever they live, and the way they act together with your complete social media.

Jugnoo, an Uber-like service for auto-rickshaws in India, used Facebook Analytics to find that 90% of users who referred other users were between the ages of 18 and 34, and 65% of that group used Android. used. They used this information to target their ads, resulting in a 40% lower cost per referral.

 

Step 3. Know Your Competition

Chances are your competitors are already using social media, and that means you can learn from what they do.

 

Do a Competitor Analysis

A competitive analysis allows you to understand who the competition is and what they are doing (and not so well). You'll have a better idea of what's expected in your industry, which will help you set your social media goals.

It will also help you find opportunities.

Perhaps one of your competitors is dominant on Facebook, for example, but has put little effort into Twitter or Instagram. You'll want to focus on networks where your audience is underserved rather than trying to sell viewers to a dominant player.

 

Use Social Media Listening

Social listening is a different way to stay a watch on your competitors.

Search for your competitor's company name, account ID, and other relevant keywords on social media. Find out what they're sharing and what others are saying about them.

As you track, you may notice changes in how your competitors and industry leaders use social media. You can find new and interesting trends. Or, you might see a specific post or campaign that really hits the mark, or completely blow it away.

Use this kind of data to tell your social media promoting strategy.

 

Step 4. Do a Social Media Audit

If you're already using social media, review your efforts so far. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What works and what doesn't?
• Who is talking to you?
• What networks does your target audience use?
• How will your social media presence compare to the competition?

Once you gather this information, you can start thinking about ways to improve. Step 4. Do a social media audit.

Once you gather this information, you can start thinking about ways to improve.

Your audit should give you a clear picture of the purpose of each of your social accounts. If the purpose of an account is unclear, consider whether it's worth keeping.

 

To help you choose, raise yourself the subsequent questions:

1. Is my audience here?
2. If so, how are they using the platform?
3. Can I use this account to help me achieve my goals?

Asking these robust queries can keep your social media strategy centered.

 

Find Fake Accounts

During an audit, you may discover fake accounts with your company name or product name.

These imposters can be detrimental to your brand, even if they're grabbing followers that should be yours.

Report them.

You'll also want to check your accounts to make sure your fans know they're dealing with you for real.

 

Step 5. Set Up Accounts and Upgrade Profiles

Deciding Which Network to Use

As you choose that social network to use, you will additionally get to outline your strategy for every.

"For our makeup tutorials… we tend to target Snapchat and Instagram Stories. Twitter, on the other hand, is designated for customer service," Benefit Cosmetics social media manager Angela Porcaro told eMarketer.

Pro tip: Write a mission statement for every network. A one-sentence statement to stay centered on a particular goal.

Another: "We will use LinkedIn to promote and share our company culture to help recruit and advocate for employees."

If you can't create a strong mission statement for a particular social media channel, you might ask yourself if it's worth it.

 

Set Up Your Profiles

Once you have determined the networks to target, it is time to form your profiles. Or improve an existing one to fit your strategy.

• Make sure you complete all the profile fields.
• Add keywords that people will use to search for your business.
• Use consistent branding (logo, images, etc.) across all networks so your profiles are easily recognizable.

Pro tip: Use high-quality pictures that follow the suggested dimensions for every network. Check out our always-up-to-date social media image size cheat sheet for a quick reference.

We even have bit-by-bit guides for every network to guide you thru the process:

• Create a Facebook business page
• Create an Instagram business account
• Create a TikTok account
• Create a Twitter Business Account
• Create a Snapchat account
• Create a LinkedIn Company Page
• Create a Pinterest Business account
• Create a YouTube channel

Don't let this list overwhelm you. Remember, it is better to use fewer channels than to try to maintain your presence on all networks.

 

Step 6. Find Inspiration

While your brand needs to be unique, you can still be inspired by other businesses that excel at social media.

 

Social Media Success Stories

You can sometimes notice them within the business section of the social network website.

Case studies can offer valuable information that you can apply to your social media plan.

 

Award-Winning Accounts and Campaigns

You can also check out Facebook Awards or The Shorty Award winners for examples of brands that are at the top of their social media game.

 

Your Favorite Brands on Social Media

Who does one prefer to follow on social media? What do they do that compels folks to interact and share their content?

National Geographic, for example, is one of the best images on Instagram, combining stunning images with great captions.

Then there's Shopify. An e-commerce brand uses Facebook to sell itself by showcasing customer stories and case studies.

And Lush Cosmetics could be a nice example of superior client service on Twitter. They use their 280 characters to answer questions and solve problems in a very engaging and on-brand way.

Keep in mind that each of these accounts has a consistent voice, tone, and style. This is key to letting people know what to expect from your feed. I mean, why should they follow you? What's in it for them?

Consistency additionally helps keep your content complete, notwithstanding you've got multiple folks on your social media team.

 

Ask Your Followers

Users can also be encouraged on social media.

What are your target customers talking about online? How are you able to study their desires and needs?

If you have got existing social channels, you'll additionally raise your followers what they need from you. Just make sure you comply and deliver what they ask for.

 

Step 7. Create a Social Media Content Calendar

Of course, sharing great content is important, but it's just as important to have a plan for when you'll share content for maximum impact.

Your social media content schedule should also take into account the time you spend engaging with your audience (although you should also allow for some spontaneous engagement).

 

Set Your Posting Schedule

Your social media content calendar lists the dates and times you will post content varieties on every channel. It's the perfect place to plan all your social media activity, from photos, link sharing, and resharing of user-generated content to blog posts and videos. This includes both daily posts and content for social media campaigns.

Your calendar also ensures that your posts are placed in the right place and posted at the best time to post.

Pro tip: You can plan your entire content calendar and get the best recommended times to post to each network based on your past engagement rates, impressions, or link click data.

 

Determine the Right Material Mix

Make sure your content strategy and timeline reflect the mission statement you've assigned to each social profile, so everything you post is aligned with your business goals. Works for

You may decide that:

• 50% of content can drive traffic back to your website.
• 25% of the content will be generated from other sources.
• 20% of content will support lead generation goals (newsletter signups, ebook downloads, etc.)
• 5% of the content will be about your company culture.

Keeping these different types of posts on your content calendar will ensure you maintain the right mix.

If you're starting from scratch and aren't sure what type of content to post, try the 80-20 rule:

• 80% of your posts should inform, educate or entertain your audience.
• 20% can directly promote your brand.

You can also try these third-party social media content marketing principles:

• A third of their content shares the ideas and stories of thought leaders in their industry or related companies.
• One-third of your content is a personal interaction with your audience.

 

Don't Post too Much or too Little

If you're starting a social media marketing strategy from scratch, you may not have figured out how often to post on each network to get the most engagement.

Post too often and you risk boring your audience. But, if you post too little, you run the risk of appearing like you're unfollowable.

Start with these posting frequency recommendations:

• Instagram (Feed): 3-7 times per week
• Facebook: 1-2 times a day
• Twitter: 1-5 times a day
• LinkedIn: 1-5 times a day

Pro tip: Once you've created your social media content calendar, use a scheduling tool to prepare your posts ahead of time instead of constantly updating them throughout the day.

 

Step 8. Create Engaging Content

Remember the mission statements created for each channel in step 5? Well, it's time to dig a little deeper, namely, provide some examples of the type of content you'll post on each network to accomplish your mission.

Here's the idea:

• Tailor your content to each network's purpose.
• Show different stakeholders (if applicable) what kind of content they'll expect to visualize on every network.

This last point will especially help you avoid any stress when your colleagues want to know why you haven't published your case study/white paper/blog post on TikTok yet. That's not in strategy, Linda!

Ideally, you'll create content types that fit both the network and the purpose you've set for that network.

For example, if you've designated this channel primarily for customer support, you don't want to waste time posting brand awareness videos on Twitter. And you don't want to run super-polished corporate video ads on TikTok because users expect to see short, unpolished videos on the platform.

It may take some testing over time to determine what type of content works best on what type of network, so be prepared to update this section frequently.

This brings us to step 9.

 

Step 9. Track Performance and Regulate Your Social Media Strategy Consequently

Your social media marketing strategy is a very important document for your business, and you can't assume you'll get it right the first time. As you begin to implement your plan and track your results, some strategies may not work as well as you hoped, while others work better than you hoped.

 

See Performance Measurement

In addition to analytics within each social network (see step 2), you can use UTM parameters to track social visitors as they move around your website, so you can see which social posts are most relevant to your website. Brings the foremost traffic to the location.

 

Review, Test and do it all Over Again

Once this data starts coming in, use it to regularly reevaluate your strategy. You can conjointly use this data to check completely different posts, social promoting campaigns, and techniques against one another. Continuous testing allows you to understand what works and what doesn't, so you can improve your social media marketing strategy in real-time.

You'll want to check the performance of all your channels at least once a week and learn the basics of social media reporting so you can track your progress over time.

Surveys may be excellent thanks to resolving however well your social media strategy is functioning. Ask your followers, email list, and website visitors if you're meeting their needs and expectations, and what they want to see more of. So make sure you do what they tell you.

 

Finalizing Your Social Media Strategy

Spoiler alert: nothing is final.

Social networks are moving fast. New networks emerge and others undergo demographic changes.

Your business will bear periods of modification.

All of this implies that your just social media promoting strategy ought to be a living document that you review and regulate pro re nata. Check back often to stay current, but don't be afraid to make changes to better reflect new goals, tools, or projects.

When you update your social strategy, make sure you communicate it to everyone on your team. That way, everybody will work along to assist your business get the foremost out of your accounts.

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